


maybe she'll fly

by themidsummersoldier



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Baby Fic, F/M, HuntingBird, I have no idea how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themidsummersoldier/pseuds/themidsummersoldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>/// lance feels he is completely useless and utterly helpless. he can’t save baby bird. he can’t make her healthy just by sheer force of will. he can’t make her grow just by loving her. \\\ in which bobbi and lance's daughter makes her grand entrance a few months early</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe she'll fly

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr 2-23-15. based on an anon's headcanon that bobbi and lance's baby would be premature. this is from lance’s pov and i’m not sure why. it is a universal truth that lance and bobbi’s baby is known as baby bird. this fic is a short drabble-y fragmented mess as always. apparently it makes people cry. enjoy.

-

they are sitting on a couch in the bunker, surrounded by friends, watching football. the real kind of football, the kind that americans call soccer, and bobbi is struggling to get comfortable. lance doesn’t pay her much attention, she hasn’t been able to get comfortable for at least a month now. it isn’t until she lets out a long deep breath that he turns to make sure she’s ok. she’s not. her eyes are wide and he reads what her lips are silently saying. suddenly he’s not ok either.

(it’s too soon.)

_((he’ll never be able to enjoy football the same way again.))_

-

the doctors say that they’ve done everything they can, but it’s time for nature to take its course. in that moment lance hates mother nature. an hour later he is amazed by what mother nature can do. he’s a dad. he’s dad to a tiny three pound perfect human being. a human being who is all painfully thin limbs and translucent skin. a human being who is completely helpless and squawks like a newly hatched bird in a nest.

(they start using the nickname baby bird.)

_((it turns out that giving her the name isabelle is harder than they thought it would be.))_

-

baby bird is two days old and has already scared her parents to death a hundred times. she’s good at that. it’s hard to believe that something that’s all blue eyes and wrinkled pink skin could cause so much trouble. it’s terrifying. every time her oxygen saturation drops and those damn monitors start beeping and every available nurse comes rushing to her tiny incubator, lance’s heart stops.

(a few days later, so does hers.)

_((she pulls through.))_

-

baby bird is four weeks old when doctors tell bobbi and lance that she needs a shunt installed. there’s fluid building up pressure on her brain, and the shunt will drain the fluid away. lance feels like someone is describing a plumbing plan for his daughter. they are warned of the very real possibility that there are already consequences from the fluid build up.

(long story short, they may be taking home a brain damaged baby.)

_((they may not be taking home any baby at all.))_

-

lance has lost track of the number of times he has heard bobbi apologizing to baby bird. hundreds of times. thousands. always the same thing. always saying she’s sorry that she wasn’t strong enough. sorry that she couldn’t carry baby bird longer. sorry that she wasn’t able to grow baby bird big enough, sorry that her body failed, sorry that she let this happen to her baby, the baby she was supposed to protect. he’s tried telling bobbi that it isn’t her fault, that she doesn’t need to say she’s sorry.

(she says she knows that, so he stops.)

_((she doesn’t.))_

-

lance feels he is completely useless and utterly helpless. he can’t save baby bird. he can’t make her healthy just by sheer force of will. he can’t make her grow just by loving her. he doesn’t know what else to do, so he throws himself into researching everything he can on preemies. skye finds him drooling on his laptop at three in the morning, the screen still on a wikipedia page about kangaroo care.

(the doctors say baby bird is still too fragile to be held at that point.)

_((eventually she’s not.))_

-

its raining hard the day that bobbi finally gets to hold baby bird. lance knows because the rocking chair in the nicu is right next to a window, and the dreary gray light coming through the blinds is terrible for photos. he takes one hundred and seventeen anyway. their tiny baby practically disappears in bobbi’s arms, and nurses stay close to make sure that none of the many wires are displaced.

(bobbi cries the whole time.)

_((so does lance.))_

-

he’s supposed to get to hold baby bird the next day. baby bird has other plans.

(the first seizure is the scariest thing he’s ever seen.)

_((the twentieth seizure is just as scary, except now he’s prepared for it.))_

-

a winter in the nicu isn’t something lance would wish on anyone. it is exhausting. it is nerve wracking. it is painful. several times bobbi has broken down beside their baby’s incubator, explaining to her that one of the other babies in the intensive care unit has become an angel, and that she won’t let baby bird do the same. there are days lance wants nothing more than to grab baby bird and get out of that awful place, with its insistent beeping and permeating hospital smell.

(he knows he can’t do that.)

_((not yet, anyway.))_

-

their baby bird gets to go home on a sunny spring day, with all sorts of wires and tubes and machines as going away presents. it has been the longest four months of bobbi’s and lance’s lives. in the end, no one can give them a straight answer on their daughter’s future, and they have come to terms with that. the best they have is their doctor’s cautioning words- that their baby bird may never walk or talk or run or play or sing or grow or do any of the other things a normal girl would do. but, then again, maybe she will.

(maybe she’ll even fly.)

_((with the cavalry for a godmother, anything is possible.))_

 

_end._


End file.
